{"id":769040,"date":"2026-08-03T17:12:21","date_gmt":"2026-08-03T17:12:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/769040\/"},"modified":"2026-08-03T17:12:21","modified_gmt":"2026-08-03T17:12:21","slug":"how-do-the-mlb-playoffs-work-baseballs-postseason-explained","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/769040\/","title":{"rendered":"How Do the MLB Playoffs Work? Baseball’s Postseason, Explained"},"content":{"rendered":"

There’s still a lot of baseball to play this summer, but the MLB<\/a> Playoffs will be here before you know it. The postseason for Major League Baseball<\/a> is set to begin near the end of September with all four Wild Card series on NBC and Peacock<\/a>, and continues through October, leading up to the Fall Classic itself, the 2026 World Series.\u00a0<\/p>\n

How to Watch<\/p>\n

Watch MLB on NBC and streaming on Peacock<\/a>.<\/p>\n

So, how many teams are in the playoffs? How many games do they play? What does the bracket look like? Let’s take a quick look at how the MLB Playoffs work, starting with what it takes to qualify.\u00a0<\/p>\n

RELATED: Full Sunday Night Baseball Schedule on NBC and Peacock<\/a><\/p>\n

How many teams make the MLB Playoffs?<\/p>\n

Of the 30 ball clubs in Major League Baseball, only 12 will make it to the postseason.<\/p>\n

How teams qualify for the MLB Postseason<\/p>\n

There are two ways to make the MLB Postseason. Six teams from each of the MLB’s two leagues<\/a> — the American and the National — will head to the playoffs. Three of those teams are the winners of each league’s three divisions, so having the best record in your division gets you an automatic berth regardless of what other teams around the league have done. The other three spots are for “Wild Card” teams, the three teams from each league with the best record who didn’t win their division.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Once the six teams from each league are set, they’re assigned a “seed” number based on their records. Division winners automatically get top seeding, even if a Wild Card team from another division has a better record, so the seeding looks like this.\u00a0<\/p>\n

1 Seed: Division winner with the best record.2 Seed: Division winner with the second-best record.\u00a03 Seed: Division winner with the third-best record.4 Seed: Wild Card team with the best record.5 Seed: Wild Card team with the second-best record.6 Seed: Wild Card team with the third-best record<\/p>\n

RELATED: Full Schedule of 2026 MLB Games on NBC and Peacock<\/a><\/p>\n

How the MLB Playoffs bracket works<\/p>\n

Once the seeding is established for each league, the playoff bracket is assembled. The 1 and 2 Seeds in each league get to skip the first round, while Seeds 3-6 compete in the Wild Card games, all of which will air on NBC and Peacock<\/a>. The 3 Seed of each league will play the 6 Seed, and the 4 Seed will play the 5 Seed in a best-of-three series, with the winner advancing to the division round. The winner of the 3 vs. 6 game will play the 2 Seed, and the winner of the 4 vs. 5 game will play the 1 Seed.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In the Division Series, the remaining eight teams will compete in best-of-five series, with the winners advancing to the League Championship Series. The remaining two teams in the American and National Leagues will play each other in best-of-seven series, with the winners taking the 2026 League Pennants and advancing to the World Series.\u00a0<\/p>\n

When is the 2026 World Series?<\/p>\n

The 2026 World Series between the American League Champion and the National League Champion is set to begin October 23. It’s a best-of-seven series, and if it goes all the way to Game 7, the Series will wrap up on Halloween night, October 31.<\/p>\n

Keep checking NBC Insider for details on NBC Sports’ live coverage of each MLB Wild Card Series, coming this October!\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"There’s still a lot of baseball to play this summer, but the MLB Playoffs will be here before…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":769041,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2288],"tags":[5,13726,2328,2304,4,2305,2303,3625,38330],"class_list":["post-769040","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb-postseason","tag-baseball","tag-hub","tag-major-league-baseball-playoffs","tag-major-league-baseball-postseason","tag-mlb","tag-mlb-playoffs","tag-mlb-postseason","tag-nbc-sports","tag-peacock"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/117032697372365212","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/769040","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=769040"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/769040\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/769041"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=769040"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=769040"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=769040"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}